The Yearly Post About NaNoWriMo

Forgive my lack of a more creative title--it' 7:01 AM and I haven't had any coffee yet. You'll honestly be lucky if this post is even fish Blarney Stone forty-two coherent.

So, if you've been here a bit, you've heard about NaNo. Oh, how you've heard about NaNo. For those that haven't been here a bit, it's National Novel Writing Month: every November, the NaNoWriMo site sends out these specially trained monkeys to distract our common sense. Not long, just long enough that we actually agree to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Then the monkeys fly back to the stable and we're left with the aftermath.

The scary part is, my monkeys didn't come, and I still signed up.

After the first year or two, you don't need monkeys. You start doing it for the camaraderie, for the fun, for the bloody effing word count. All very good reasons, too.

And did I mention the coffee? Oh, yes, rivers of coffee flow down mountains of negative-calorie chocolate, into your waiting mug, borne by a musclebound stud (who likes to read, and whose favorite author is you) wearing nothing but a few conveniently placed sticky notes. Plus, you know, they're good for writing emergency notes on, too.

Okay, fantasy over (until I sign off). Aside from that, NaNo is still fun, it's still worthwhile. I do some of my best long-form writing during NaNo, whether it's November NaNo or Camp NaNo, or just me screwing around with NaNo rules in, like, May or something.

Of course, this all somehow (apparently) qualifies me to part the bookish seas for others. I signed up to be Municipal Liaison for my region. I think I was drugged.

So, do you want to write? Do you want to pass that noveling blockage and open the floodgates on your creativity? Do you think joining NaNoWriMo is the fastest way to shut me up (It's not. That privelege belongs to only a very few things, including those chocolatey, coffee-bearing, mountain men.) ? Run on over to THE SITE (It's important. Everything in all caps is important, right?) and sign up. Like, now.

Olivia
Matrimony
Lou Garoux
Later,
Voss

The Pulse

We've done it! At last! The one week mark is past, and the year's best holiday of all is upon us (okay, maybe it's not better than Chocolate Covered Anything Day, but who can wait until December 16th for that?)! I speak not of All Hallow's Eve, but of the glorious, mad, insane event known as National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo! Huzzah!

Now that it's so close, there's a strange thing going on all over the world. You can just feel and tap into that glorious energy that's abounding. People on every continent are getting excited, are gearing up for NaNoWriMo. It's so powerful I'm stuck halfway between hooting and hollering with joy and crying for sheer awesomeness.

It happens every year, too. To someone that's never done NaNoWriMo, it doesn't make sense, but it's almost like a pulse inside of every participant. It starts right around the end of September, when we realize that the forums open next month, and we get to be sucked back into the majesty of the event. Early October, the real die-hards pop up full of energy, planning their masterwork.

Then we hit this. The pulse is so strong you can feel the sheer power in your breast, threatening to burst out, and it gets stronger every second. Now, maybe this has something to do with NaNo Eve falling on All Hallow's Eve, and the spirits of the unfulfilled writers are filling us up to do get the same high we get, but by the time we hit the 31st of October, all of us go insane.

I think the big thing, the one thing that truly makes NaNoWriMo so amazing, is that it breaks the stereotype. When we think of authors, they're always suffering, drinking, dropping acid, and have way too many sticks shoved in a not so pleasant place to have sticks shoved into. They go through agonizing spells of writer's block (which doesn't exist) and decide that they need to piddle upon us lowly peons trying to make a name in their world.

NaNo probably makes their skin crawl, if they exist. Anyone can and should write a novel--that's how we operate. That's why people come in the first place--the memories, the pulse, brings them crowding back every year.

So, as the pulse grows stronger and stronger, and novelists break free from their chrysalides, we go. Write-ins are planned, plots are laid down, characters sketched and profiled, intravenous coffee is briefly considered, kick-offs are designed, MLs are worshipped, and large, thick lockboxes are decorated so as to imprison our inner editors in the coming month.

NaNo. NaNo. NaNo. NaNo. NaNo. NaNo. NaNo.

NANO!

NaNo NaNo (it would be great if somebody actually got that reference...but I doubt they will...too old school for a lot of you, I'm sure...)

Now, away with you, oh holy pilgrims of the inkwell! Prepare!
Voss

The NaNo Goddess Cometh

And as such, I choose to pay her tribute. This will be my first official November NaNo here with this blog and all of you, my lovelies. I know that I won't be able to keep up with my blogging schedule come November time, but I can make some posts.

My hope is that I'll be able to get some of you all to kindly post here, too. That doesn't mean I expect it to happen, but I would be remiss to try. If you prefer not to post for me, you can sit back and watch other posters gallivant about my blog. I'll try and keep you all updated as to just who will be stopping by.

If you're interested in doing a post for me, drop me a line at sted1354 @ gmail dot com.

Peace, love, and chicken grease,
Voss

The Grandest of Schemes

When authors sit down to do their pre-work on a new project, they find themselves doing a lot of jumping and, if they're anything like me, talking, pacing, and scribbling, just to work out the details of this whole new thingy.

I've noticed that a lot of people that don't write, think we have these grand ideas that start off our novels, that the seeds are diamonds encrusted with gold and dipped in melted silver. They, however, are wrong. Ideas start as something supremely shallow and odd, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, something to the tune of: I want a story with an awesome guild of knights who are awesome.

Of course, no one else needs to know that's where we start.

Next comes the writing two-step: research and planning. Before we write word one, we find ourselves lost, not knowing squat about military strategy. So we read Sun Tzu's "Art of War", the equivalent of Cliffnotes on the subject (really, it's not even fifty pages, I don't think).

Then we realize, "Oh dear, why is my emperor trying to do all of this in the first place? It can't be jsut bcause he wants to rule the world--that's just boring." And we psychologically profile him, finding that he believes whatever he believes that makes him do this.

Next we make maps.

We work out the wealth of each and every country.

We find out the military force available to any one group.

We psychoanalyze their leaders.

We look at the natural resources and major exports of every nations.

And.

And.

And.

You get the picture. Why post this? To inspire others to break the rules along with me: NaNoWriMo is fast approaching, and I think, at least for people that have done it before, it's toime to go balls deep into the next project. So, I invite you to join me and begin planning your next work now...besides, it's only a little (a lot) more than the one week planning deadline given in the official rules, right?

Happy novelling,
Voss

Camp NaNoWriMo Update--Mid-Month

For those that don't know, I'm taking part in the inaugural run of Camp NaNoWriMo this month. What that means is that, yes, I'm writing another novel. Okay, technically you write a novella in NaNo events, but I digress.

Any who, for those that have never taken part in this fest of festiness, this won't mean much at first--for those that have:

It's the first day of Week Three.

Okay, I'm being arcane now. Let me cut to the chase.

Week two is the test of whether you can do this or not. Week two is HELL. Week two is that awkward transitional phase between exposition and real, solid plot, story, and character--and we all knwo how much transitions suck.

Now it's over, though, and it has a strange efect. Sometime soon, you see, the magical curse of week two is going to lift--just going to up and leave--any of the worthy that survived week two. The dog is going to suddenly become house-trained, the washer will magically fix, your mother-in-law will misplace your phone number, and that shipment of writing fairies will come in with extra thrown in to make up for late delivery.

All inall, things start to line up and you can write--even if you're way behind, you can get it written still. For me, it all came in yesterday--the final day of week two. I pulled 3,000 words that day and got totally caught up (and ahead) for the next day. And it just didn't seem that hard. I won't say I know my entire plot yet, but the most important thing is to be up on your words.

There's a sort of magic in the air with week three, and if my fellow campers aren't feeling it--you will.

Looking towards 25,000,
Voss